Orbitz Unveils Hotel Shopping Tool

Orbitz today launched a new hotel matrix, similar to the existing air matrix, that streamlines hotel price searches for site users. Michael Sites, vice president of product marketing, said the new search capabilities will be added to Orbitz for Business as early as the first quarter. "We will make sure that preferred hotels from specific suppliers are highlighted for those customers," Sites explained.

The hotel matrix provides a quick glance of numerous hotels in a given market, listed by distance, price and independent star ratings. "Hotels are not necessarily a commodity, people may not want to stay in the cheapest one, per se," Sites said.

Orbitz said its hotel inventory encompasses 70,000 properties, including major chains and individual boutique hotels, currently confined to the United States. International capabilities will be added down the road.

Orbitz today also demonstrated for journalists new airfare search tools now in testing with select users. The flexible search, for example, helps determine the best travel time based on potential departure dates and corresponding fares. "Orbitz for Business customers have said they can use this tool to determine when and where to have meetings," Sites noted.

Another advancement in testing is deal detector, a tool that runs in the background and alerts users when a particular fare or price in a given market drops below a certain level.

Already live on the Orbitz site is an expanded tips box that informs users if and by how much a given fare beats the average ticket price in that market from the past 30 days, and if lower fares are available at alternate airports or at alternate times.